This One
by Ciella
Summary: Hershey Cat fell into the lives of our favorite characters without much warning. Outside of the initial drama her entrance caused, she never really rocked the boat. A story of Hershey, by Hershey, for Hershey. All chapters are rated T except 11. Warning: Chapter 11 is explicit.
1. Chapter 1

Thank you to ABSOselfRBED for notifying me that the format of this first chapter was so screwed up! Ahh! That's what you get for trying to upload a pages document without thinking!

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We first met after the accident. I had successfully fulfilled Drago's orders and cut the Princess of Acorn down to a four-story drop. In my mind, I was convinced I had killed Snively, but to explain that misunderstanding would take a whole class of drugs.

Sally hit the ground. EMS was already there, scooping up her little body like a frozen songbird from the sidewalk. While the crowd below stood gaping in horror, I slipped in through the window and began making my escape. I made it down three stories. On the fourth, the only exit was blocked by a large man. He said nothing. His thick gloved hand shot out at me and we grappled for several minutes. I threw my head into his, blood streaming from his nose, and he backhanded me across the face. My mask came flying off. Sonic's face on the floor, two strangers staring into each other eyes, neither set green.

Soon Drago would arrive. The job was officially botched. I tried to take out my assailant with a roundhouse kick, but he grabbed my leg and held it aloft. At this awkward angle, all I could try to do was yank my leg back and scratch him. I scratched his arm badly twice before he took hold of my neck. That's it, I thought, I'm dead.

I woke up somewhere in the castle, held bridal-style in this guy's arms. My neck ached. Over our heads were candlelight chandeliers like you'd only find in a room the king inhabits, with dozens of candles in a spiraling pattern, lit painstakingly by some poor soul and then hoisted twenty feet above ground and ten feet from the ceiling. My assailant's voice surprised me. I had expected a burlier voice. It was hardly baritone, and he spoke well, like someone who'd had more of an education than most of the war babies in our generation.

If I moved too much, I would probably not have been privy to the conversation anymore, so I held still. The other voice sounded elderly but firm, and it called my assailant "St. John" with great authority. The king demanded that I stand trial and be punished for my attempt on his daughter's life. Then this St. John spoke up again, a heavy mantle of respect greatly changing the posture with which he propositioned the king. My ears perked up. I was waiting for him to say something an evil crony would say. I was waiting for him to say, Let me kill her, Master! or otherwise ask for permissions to keep me as some kind of sexual object. Then I realized that, to all of those people in the crowd, I was the evil crony. I wasn't sure if either of these two would advocate for me.

This St. John guy spoke softly. Please, Sire, he said, with a voice that I could drink like sweetened tea. She has so many talents, he said. Talents that could serve you well.

I prayed in my head that he wasn't offering me up as some kind of concubine. The king was very angry at first, and raged for a short time. Then he began to reconsider. He asked about my talents. He asked about why I should bypass my right to a trial for a crime dozens of people watched me commit. My assailant bowed his head with a chuckle, which of course forced him to bow his torso a little, and moved me in turn. He told His Majesty with All due respect, that no one had seen me commit any crime. They had seen Sonic commit a crime. They could easily try Sonic and acquit him, and this whole mess would be behind them.

My heart started racing. I didn't actually know this Sonic guy. I didn't really intend to get him mixed up in a bad rap. My assailant went on to say that I had all the skills the Secret Service- whatever the hell that was- could dream of. I could disguise myself well. I never spoke during combat. I neither denied nor flaunted my femininity, which could be a strength or a weakness in special ops. I scaled a building- his words, not mine- as if I were merely walking on a slight incline. And when I had finished my task, neatly and with great speed, I slipped away like shadows at noon, and made my escape.

This guy spoke very flatteringly of me for someone who may have broken his nose. I was suspicious to say the least. It seems the king was too, which might have explained the long pause that followed. Alright, the king sighed, I will give you one chance. Whip this girl into shape, make her a soldier, and we will make like none of this ever happened.

My assailant bowed again and thanked him. He began backing away from the throne when the king piped up one last time. St. John. He froze. The king's voice had an eeriness about it in those two singsong syllables. Fail me, the king breathed softly, and this one is on you.


	2. Chapter 2

My assailant kept walking at a jerky, uncomfortable pace, one that was unnatural and hurried for him. Maybe I was too heavy for him to carry for a long time, I thought. It seemed like the longest time before he stopped. "Hey, open your eyes. No one stays passed out for that long."

I kept my breathing slow and laid eyes on him again. "How long have you known?"

"That technique only keeps people out for four or five minutes. You were faking it for another twenty. I'm going to put you down, so brace yourself." He set me gently on my feet, stretching his arms and back after an unbroken thirty minutes or so of carrying dead weight. He pointed right in my face, immediately putting my hackles on end. "Now look, Missy. I've put my fucking life on the line for you."

I shoved his hand aside. "Thanks, buddy. Big pats. Want a cookie?"

"Oh, you wanna go? You're a tough one now, Sleeping Beauty?" He crosses his arms, his face snarling, but his body reserved. "Look. I don't have time to monkey around. You've been drafted- so to speak- to avoid trial. You work for me now."

"And how exactly do you plan to enforce that?"

He leaned in closely, at which point I realized that his eyes were unusually large. His nose, obviously broken up-close, was a hair's breadth away from mine. "Darling," he whispered, a chill going up my spine. "Take the word apart. En-force. By. Force."

To be perfectly honest, I was scared to death, and I immediately made plans to escape. The problem is that I had planned everything assuming that Pépé St. John or whatever was going to be watching me directly. The first thing he did was get my medical approval to enlist with the help of one Dr. Quack. Then he dropped me off at the barracks for new cadets and sauntered off.

I underwent standard training as if I wanted to be there. I got to know my fellows, especially in the women's barracks, but didn't bother to go out of my way to make friends. Unfortunately, there was always an officer on duty, and there were only two ways out. The other door was always flanked by a recently graduated cadet trying to curry favor with somebody higher on the totem pole. My first thought was to kill or knock out one or both of them. But how would I even pull that off without someone in a room of fifty women waking up?

My chance came when we went on a long hike. I made a break for the woods, and I was pursued by the junior officer, who didn't stand a chance. I lost him at a little thicket shortly before the stream, where I swung from one tree brach to another to get across the gap. He didn't stop in time and wound up falling into the stream, covered in thorns.

I had barely patted myself on the back when night fell and I didn't have the faintest clue which way was which. So I climbed up into a tree and slept out of the reach of predators. It'd be safer to continue traveling by daylight. Before I knew it, I was on a cot back with what's-his-face, sitting on the edge of my bed, arms crossed, fingers tapping furiously.

"Give me one reason I shouldn't kill you," he practically frothed. I was too shocked to say anything. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"I don't want to serve in the army. I wanna go home."

"Look, Miss. Let's get something straight-"

"My name is Hershey."

"I don't give a damn what your name is!" He stood suddenly, his hands flying over his head. "You tried to assassinate Princess Sally. If you don't serve with me, you're going to trial, and you'll most certainly be sent to the Gulags."

"No, that's a false dilemma if I ever heard one! You could let me go, but you're too proud for that."

He sighed heavily, his meaty hand slapping over his eyes. "Of course not! I'm not being sent to the Gulags over your hide."

"Why did you even make such an offer? You could have just let me go. The king wouldn't even have to know about this. Neither of us would be up against the wall like this."

St. John took a deep breath and sat at the foot of my bed. He rest his hand heavily on my knee. "Look, Ms. Hershey, if you really want to know, it's because I'm the king's right hand man. I know more about what's going on in this country than the crown prince." I looked at him disbelievingly. He was not at all put off by this. "I notice things like Sonic being able to climb as if he didn't have a round little body. I stop people like you from getting away when it would otherwise be considered impossible. In short, to let you go would be an obvious betrayal of my allegiance."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," I moan into my face-palm, "why did I have to be caught by the honorable rent-a-cop?"

He smirks charmingly, averting his eyes. "Rent-a-cop?" He chuckles briefly, then replaces his angry eyes Mr. Potato style, rubbing his jaw aggressively with his hand, suddenly stern and frowning. "Please, Ms. Hershey. You can keep running off and I can keep hunting you down. Or you can finish your basic training and I can make you into one of the best Secret Service members this country has ever seen."

I hug myself, not liking my odds. "I don't want to be a Secret Service member. I don't even know what that is! I just want to go home to my boyfriend and forget about all of this."

St. John's face changes in a strange way, one that I haven't seen yet. He doesn't look at me. He looks kind of blank and sad at the same time. "Ms. Hershey, that reminds me. I meant to ask you…"

"You already dragged me back here, no need to be so polite."

He smiles briefly, politely, a less than social person in great discomfort. It's probably the scariest look he's ever attempted around me. "The doctor who examined you is a great friend of mine. He mentioned that you came to us covered in bruises."

I swallow hard and slide down further into the cot. "I don't want to talk about this."

"Miss," he rises, speaking softly. "Please, don't run away anymore. You can live a great life in the Service. But more importantly, you'll only be beaten by your enemies. Please, consider that."

The door closed. I cried that night.


	3. Chapter 3

The first few days were very hard. I found it hard to sleep at night, afraid that Drago would come in at any moment and accuse me of betraying him. We used to do drugs recreationally together, and I was starting to miss doing them, especially cocaine. So in short, I felt awful, and I had to survive basic training.

With St. John plugging my name all over the place, my track was accelerated. He really seemed to want me on his side, or at least not get himself sent to the Gulags. After a few months, I was eligible to be screened for some of the more prestigious groups, which in my case was obviously the Service. I'm almost positive St. John paid my way through the drug tests, or otherwise waived the results. The drug test proctor convinced me that they could see years into a person's user history. I don't know if it's true, but I definitely didn't want to get turned around after coming this far for something so stupid.

The night before I was supposed to begin my higher-level training, St. John visited me again, like a recurring nightmare. He seemed nervous. "I don't know how to tell you this, Cat," he said, using my last name now according to military tradition, "but as hard as this training is, it's going to be a lot worse for you."

I looked up at him, exhausted. Those of us trying out for the Service had been granted private rooms in the same suite. They were very bare, just a cot, some exposed shelves acting as drawers, and a plastic roll-out tub for personal belongings under the cot, but it was luxurious compared to the barracks. Everything was the same light gray color. St. John's coloring looked especially severe in these surroundings, pure black on pure white, those haunting eyes the color of thick ice, and jungle cameo fatigues. To be honest, I zoned out a little. He had a nice physique under the faded green t-shirt that was tucked into his belt. Very T-shaped.

He cleared his throat, trying to act like he didn't notice. "Seriously. Like it or not, you're making history. You're going to be the first woman on this team."

"Oh, cool." I was that girl growing up who believed in everything feminism stood for, but didn't like the reputation of feminism itself. At this point in my life, I didn't understand why this mattered yet.

"Cool? That's awesome. But it's not going to be easy. The training itself is grueling, and you're going to have to work twice as hard to keep up with the boys."

"Aren't you basically pushing me along? Am I even earning this for myself?"

"I've definitely given you a leg up- I've mentioned you to some important figures. But I can only get you so far. There are a number of objective measures you'll need to pass. And if you can get through accelerated basic training, I'm confident that you can do it if you apply yourself."

Before I could say whatever smart remark I had in mind, there came a knock at the door. Geoffrey's adam's apple bounced in his throat. I wonder if he'd been anticipating this all along. He answered the door, and behind it was Princess Sally, recovering well if slowly in her back brace. Her eyes grazed him on the shoulder and pierced me.

"So, this is the person who tried to kill me?"

"Princess, allow me-"

"I want to address her directly. Stand aside." The Princess's voice was harsh, nothing like I imagined. Of course, it was a very unusual circumstance. She was very graceful, even in a back brace, as she approached. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I'm sorry, Your Highness!" I snapped to attention. "I had mistaken you for another target!"

"So I've heard. A mask of Sonic's face was found at the scene, and it makes everyone look like Snively." She glared at St. John, who averted his gaze like a chastened child. "And _you_ proposed to put Sonic on trial, knowing full well that he didn't commit this crime!"

He bit his lip, not wanting to talk back, but struggling not to correct her. He was above average height. He could be ominous. But he was so small before Sally.

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

"If I may, Princess, Private Cat's talents are very rare indeed. She's the perfect fit for the team composed to protect your family-"

"Do you not see the irony in this?"

"Yes, of course, Princess, but I knew you would most likely survive, and she would be more useful to you alive than dead."

"How could you possibly know this?"

"You only fell four stories."

"Only!"

"It would've taken twelve stories to guarantee your death," he murmured sheepishly. "At worst, falling foot-first, four stories might have crippled you."

Sally fumed quietly. "Pretend I understand this. Why put Sonic on trial?"

"He's the guilty party as far as all the witnesses are concerned. He's got a ton of credibility with everyone who knows him. We've got a great lawyer on his side, guaranteeing that he'll be acquitted. Let's just say we're borrowing some of his credibility for the sake of someone who doesn't have any yet."

"So this is all an elaborate show to exonerate someone to suit your needs?"

"No," he responded, in all seriousness. "But rather, to suit yours."

Sally was so angry, she was literally shaking in her boots. She pointed in his face much as he had pointed in mine months before. "You're playing with fire," she snarled. "So help me, if Sonic is declared guilty over this-"

"He won't be, Princess. I'll make sure of it."

She nodded, glancing fatally at me before turning to leave.


	4. Chapter 4

About half of my Secret Service training was cliché, straight out of a war movie, and about half is too confidential to be disclosed here. All I can tell you is that St. John was most definitely right: it was hell. It was mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausting. Somebody cried or vomited or passed out almost everyday (but mostly vomited, and I'm no exception). About one-third of all applicants failed on the first day. The next third had failed by the time the training was half over. During this time, St. John was not allowed to counsel me under any circumstances, and the training was overseen by three other proctors.

All four of them became my personal demons. They would approach you randomly during the training, especially if it looked like you were flagging, and harass you. They would scream at you, pull you off of obstacles you were struggling to surmount, push you into barbed wire, literally drag you through the mud, wait in the water and pull you in until you passed out. They woke us up at any and all hours of the night, either calling us to attention or acting as an enemy trying to kill us in our sleep. I starting sleeping with a knife; I sent one of the proctors to the ER.

Near the end of my training, there were only about ten applicants left. We were all miserable, tired, and perpetually dirty. We started to bicker a lot instead of resting. I got into a fight with one of the applicants, and he started cursing me out as one only does a woman, and making ugly threats. The other applicants starting egging us on. We started fist-fighting, and when it looked like I was about to win, he hit me hard in the head. I was on the ground when I heard him undoing his belt. My eyes shot open. I grabbed my knife and drove it deep into his calf. He howled like there was a full moon out, and as I withdrew my knife, hot blood streaming down my hand, I saw a silhouette fleeing from the doorway.

Needless to say, that applicant was no longer fit for duty. At the end of the day, there was only myself, Valdez, and Wombat who passed. Out of about fifty people, three would actually be trained as Secret Service operatives. I was deeply distrustful of them at first. They had cheered, not trying to break up the fight but see one started, and they had stood idly by when I was in something of a precarious position. Of course I was capable of protecting myself. But if I was going to be serving with these men, it would've been nice to know that they would have protected me, or at least tried.

The three of us attended a big ceremony, with the king and the general and all kinds of important people. There were reporters there because I was the first woman in the history of the Service to graduate. But it all felt distant. I didn't crave the coke (much) anymore, but I did miss and fear Drago in a twisted way. I missed having someone around who cared. And when it wasn't really bad with Drago, it was really good.

There was no one at the induction ceremony to be excited for me. Valdez's widowed mom came, and she was crying. Wombat got in touch with the Freedom Fighters Down Unda, skyping with them on his phone and introducing them to his new teammates. Amy came as his date. At one point, Princess Sally even came by to congratulate me. She was still pretty frosty, but I have to say, I'm not sure I could forgive someone who had literally broken my back. I was content to stand at attention and thank her in that moment.

The most interesting moment of the entire night was probably when everyone else found themselves occupied, and once again I found myself alone with St. John. I was sipping champagne when he sat down. "Congrats, Cat," he grinned, squeezing my shoulder firmly. "I knew you could do it."

I hummed in lackluster agreement, looking down into my flute. He touched my arm gently to get my attention.

"Are you glad that you made it?"

"I don't know." I said without thinking. My words were weak and without tone. I looked up at my new superior, but I felt like he was worlds away, as if I were looking at him through the wrong end of binoculars.

He folded his white gloved hands in his lap and sighed. "I'm sorry, Cat. You've done a great job pulling through this for both of us. How about this: we'll go over your contract first thing tomorrow morning, alright? We'll set you up for the shortest possible tour. Then if you hate it, you'll have done your duty, and you'll be free to go."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"I just don't understand…" I ran my tongue over my teeth as I tried to put it into words. "Why did you go through all this trouble? Would the king _really_ have punished you at all for letting me go?"

He chuckled, notably drinking from a glass of water instead of champagne. "Well, I reacted so quickly because I thought you were Sonic, and I wanted to whoop your ass." I laughed softly to myself. I liked his genuine smile much more than his social one. "Then I beat your mask off and realized that you weren't Sonic at all but rather a femme fatale."

"So what, did you think I wouldn't be able to fight you? Or…?"

"I honestly wasn't sure. I was in shock. Do you remember? We just stared at each other for a few minutes. You were tiny, and not at all scrappy looking. But then suddenly you panicked, tried to kick me and then started scratching the hell out of me. I wanted to reason with you, but you were understandably freaking out. I knew that if I didn't take you in right then, there was about a ten-to-one chance that you'd be tracked and captured by someone else, who would must likely have you stand trial for the crime you'd committed. So I subdued you and brought you to Max."

I chewed my lip, alternately looking at him and sipping my champagne. "Alright."

"What's that!" The words came out laughing. "You sound like you don't trust me."

"I don't trust any of you."

"Perhaps you've got good reason for that," he mused. "I hope someday you can trust me. There _is_ a method to my madness, after all; There's just a lot of madness in the method, too."

I squinted my eyes and cocked my head at him. He just laughed again, and left my company, drink in hand.


	5. Chapter 5

Now we started to see progressively more of St. John. He was different from all the other professionals we had worked with in that he wasn't just a teacher or a trainer; he was our Captain. He started us on tactical trials. He fine-tuned our strengths and dramatically improved our weaknesses. And before we knew it, he declared us ready for our first mission.

Now, depending on who your superior is, the best case scenario for a new team is one of the following: either they have an easy, confidence-building mission that brings you closer to your teammates, or you have a perfect storm of everything that can go wrong, hardening you and convincing you that after that, you can do anything. I have no idea which of these St. John had in mind. I mean, he's a madman, so I assume he would have preferred the latter. But no matter what he really wanted, we didn't really get either. We got a hot mess.

The trial that would have been mine was heaped onto Sonic's plate instead. He was- rightfully- fucking pissed. People shunned him, often refusing him service or jeering him in the streets. He had come to St. John at some point asking him to clear his name, but the Captain insisted that he could not, as he'd be putting me in jeopardy. The crown prince also came to him soon after, asking him to tutor him so he wouldn't lose his eligibility for the throne. The Captain said no, no, no, but ultimately, yes. So when we finally went on a mission into Robotropolis, our superior's head wasn't exactly as clear as it should have been.

The short version of the story goes something like this: we go into Robotropolis, we're about to achieve our objective- rescuing POWs- when Sonic and company come barging in out of nowhere, start fighting with bots, and blow our cover. We _did_ get the POWs out, but it was way harder than if they could have just waited an hour or so. Captain meets with Sonic and Sally later that day, asking why they didn't communicate this intended attack. They reply simply that when he threw Sonic under the bus, he lost his right to know what they had planned. End of story.

Several missions go on like this. We're doing a thing, Sonic and company come in and ruin it, and we barely finish the thing by the skin of our teeth. It starts to feel intentional. Captain meets with Sonic and Sally again, they insist that they're not trying to sabotage us. We're unconvinced. To make matters worse on a personal level, Wombat thought that when he asked Amy to be his date, that she was ready to date him. She's still got it really bad for Sonic, who doesn't give her the time of day. So now two of our members had beef with Sonic.

It wasn't all bad. King Max was gradually starting to accept that I was turning out ok. As a result, he would ask me to escort royals or officials on my own or with one or two officers, or ask me to guard the Queen's chambers. This work was a lot less interesting, but also much less stressful and aggravating. There was no way the whole St. John-Sonic feud could ruin this gig, or so I thought.

We started getting assigned to Sally. Watching Sally, doggy-guarding Sally, escorting Sally. Ugh. She was going through a rebellious phase like many teenagers, but unlike many teenagers, she had the guts and social clout to do things like invade enemy lines. (I liked to think of her as a kind of little auburn Napoleon.) Max didn't think this was very noble behavior, and wanted to keep Sally alive and well in case Elias failed to succeed him. No one really thought that Elias would succeed him, anyway.

St. John really tried. He arranged to escort and guard Sally on her own terms, often accompanying her at a distance while she was out with friends. Valdez had clued me in to his long-standing crush on the Princess, so I wondered if this was his way of trying to spend some time alone with her. Well, his presence became a major problem; if he was constantly escorting her, they couldn't boycott informing him on their plans. Sally's plan A was to run to her father and complain. Max didn't budge. Sally's plan B was to avoid the Captain at all costs.

This is where our lives became a big, stupid game of Spy vs. Spy. St. John spent an enormous amount of time and energy trying to anticipate where Sally would go or keep up with wherever she already was. Sonic appeared to be heading a small portion of the Freedom Fighters to continue their inconvenient excursions. And Elias knocked on St. John's door almost every night to be counseled on how to be a monarch. After a few months of this, our Captain was exhausted, bitter, and defeated. I could hear him admonishing the crown prince as I entered my room, right next to his, with the famous lines that would damn him in the future.

"I'm going to be quite candid with you, Elias. You're a poor excuse for a leader. Can't blame you, actually. You were never cut out for this line of work. You spent most of your life on an island...never dreaming you'd someday be a prince. Your father should've appointed the princess his successor, but he's stuck in the old ways. So what do you do? If you're smart, you'll let me help. I can guide every decision you make from behind the scenes, so Max won't be disappointed. Agreed?"


	6. Chapter 6

If you made it this far, chances are you don't need to be told how trying to raise Max's children went. Sally was a true leader, and nobody was going to tell her what to do, not even someone as tenacious and skilled as my Captain. She was doing what she was born to do, and I think some part of Max and St. John knew all along that they were wrong to try and stop her. Elias, however, didn't have an ounce of leader in him.

He was a good little marionette for a short time. St. John tweaked a few small pieces of legislation, making them more progressive, and actually managed to increase trade with Mercia. The Captain took some of the only vacation days any of us can remember when he needed to study something for Elias. He would hole himself up in his room, sometimes not coming out even to eat, emerging only when he felt he had a decent solution. He made mistakes, of course. He was absolutely fed up with Sonic and his Freedom Fighters, and he used Elias and abused his power to limit them. And then Max became really ill, and if Sonic hadn't stepped in… I don't want to talk about that.

Fortunately, Max did recover. And when he did, Elias decided to come clean to his family, while they were all still gathered around his father. He told Max everything- that he wanted badly to make his father proud, but he simply didn't have it in himself to lead, and so he'd turned to St. John to do the heavy lifting for him. The Captain and I were guarding the room from the outside when this happened. I watched his whole body get stiff. Max called his name sweetly, and my Captain took a deep breath before entering the room.

I can't imagine what that onslaught was like. Max raged from his hospital bed, but quietly, to avoid incurring the wrath of Dr. Quack. He spat at Elias for failing him, and he swore at St. John for misleading him. I could almost hear the two young men sweating. I couldn't hear Sally or Alicia saying anything at all, which struck me as very odd. Max threatened my Captain with a court-martial. I heard St. John humbling himself and apologizing over and over again. But I was starting to wonder if it was too late for that.

St. John was finally excused with unpaid leave. He emerged from the room like a ghost of his former self, so languid in his movements that I thought he was going to faint. He was pale, and he hid his face from me as he walked away.

Sally approached me when the family meeting finally ended, after Elias and her mother had departed quietly and the lights were off in Max's room. She asked me if St. John was okay when he left. I said no, obviously not. Who asks such a thing? She told me that she was sorry for what had happened. She asked me to apologize for her behavior towards him as an escort, and for her father's behavior as a boss. I told her that I would do no such thing. She could and should do it herself. At first she set her jaw as if to argue with me. But then Sally smiled, albeit sadly. She said she could understand why Geoffrey wanted to hire me in the first place. But she then she walked away, just like everyone else, without telling me why.

We had entered one of those times in life where when shit rains, shit pours. When St. John's leave was over, he led us into a series of missions, each worse than the last. Robotnik's forces were growing in number and strength, and invading enemy lines, let alone recovering detainees and supplies, was borderline impossible. But we were running low on almost everything. We had been at war for over ten years! And we couldn't stop trying. In the near future, trade with Mercia would actually go a long way towards sustaining us, given their enormous agricultural exports and their desire for modern knowledge. But we didn't know that yet, and we needed to find a way to survive the interim period.

I noticed that St. John was starting to bench me a lot. I was doing simple tasks- really below my rank- things like getting water or starting the fire or holding down the fort. It was just so unlike him. This was the man who was convinced that womanhood was not a handicap, even in the elite forces. This was the man who knew I could get into the Service even when I didn't. And yet here he was, assigning me the domestic work. While on one such mission, I called him out on it. He apologized immediately. I was so shocked; I really didn't think that was a possible outcome unless you were Max! He mumbled out a series of excuses, but nothing really satisfying came out of it. It was actually really out-of-character, come to think of it. He was downright sheepish.

One fateful day soon after, we went on one such mission, I was benched, and Valdez went missing. He would never be recovered. Wombat freaked out, having some kind of epiphany, like the realization that you don't respawn in real life. He was so out of it for the rest of the mission that he almost got us all killed, and he was discharged for mental instability later that week.

Then the Prince disappeared.

I thought my Captain was going to kill himself. He'd embarrassed himself, lost all but one member of his team, failed most of his recent missions, and now the heir to the throne was nowhere to be found. Max called us to counsel him and his family, along with a few other officers. My Captain was like a statue. He just stared straight ahead like one of those post-mortem Victorian photography subjects.


	7. Chapter 7

I knocked on his door that night after the meeting. He didn't answer, but I knew he was inside. I let myself in. He sat on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands, the window open to let in a cool, late September breeze. When he looked up at me, his face reminded me of a story a friend had told me when she visited Japan. Her gracious host family had taken her out to eat at a local restaurant, where they ate live lobster. They cut into the tail and picked out large pieces of its tender flesh. She said that even in the face of a crustacean, the agony was plain to see.

"Don't worry, you don't have to ask," he said softly. "You're free to go."

"I'm not here to ask your permission, Captain."

"Perhaps not," he sighed. "That's ok. You may not have joined this line of work voluntarily, but you were quite an impressive soldier nonetheless."

"Well, thank you, but I'm not trying to leave."

"Oh! Then what are you here for?"

I sat down beside him on the bed, putting a hand on his knee and squeezing in little pulses. A faint smile tugged at his mouth. "I know you're having a really bad time right now, and I'm worried about you, Captain."

Then he gave me the cutest look- the look of a child praised by adults in front of company. He itched a spot on his upper lip, looking away from me. "No one's ever worried about me before. I don't know what to say."

"Promise me you won't do anything stupid."

He met my gaze briefly, from the corner of his eye. "What are you talking about?"

"Promise me you won't give up on what you love, Captain."

As I continued to watch him without disturbing him, he gradually came out of his self-imposed withdrawal. When we made eye contact, our eyes stayed in contact. I remembered seeing that distinct cornflower blue months before and feeling so much heat and pressure- so much anger, so much resentment. I looked into them now and watched the blue recede as his pupils slowly dilated, eventually coming to see myself in them. I could feel my pulse in strange places, like my throat and stomach.

He extended his hand just a few inches to envelope mine. I could feel myself grinning. "Perhaps it's time we got on a first-name basis?" He suggested.

"I told you to call me Hershey the first time we spoke."

He knocked his head back and laughed. "You're right. Well, I'm sorry I didn't listen, Hershey."

Hearing him say my name was one of the simplest things to ever make me so happy. "Look, I should apologize, too. I don't think I've ever even learned your first name."

"I don't think I ever told you- we were on such formal terms. Just call me Geoffrey."

"I love that name," I told him. He was positively transformed by a smile. Not by a smirk, a grin, a grimace, or any other coy facsimile. Just that smile, that pure, visual belly laugh. I wondered in that moment if anyone else had ever had this privilege before.

"Thank you for coming here tonight," he murmured. "You've really turned my night around."

"I really just wanted to know that you'd be ok." I stood to leave, excited and scared by everything that I felt. He seemed a little flighty too. His hair was ruffled, and if I had learned anything about this man, it was that he always looked perfect. I had to wonder what his mind looked like for his vanity to be shelved for even a short time. But he was a lot braver than I was. He walked the few steps to the door with me, and before reaching to open it, he gave me one of the best hugs I've ever been a part of. Our size difference made it better. He held me very gently, while I delighted in how firm and warm his torso was. I could feel his pulse fluttering in his neck when my cheek was pressed up against it.

Before I knew it, it was time to let go. We said goodnight. I left his room and walked the short distance into mine. Inside, my room was a bit stuffy, as I had forgotten to open the window around sundown. It seemed infinitely emptier than it had earlier that day. My mind kept wandering as I got ready for bed, wondering if he had taken the opportunity to feel me, too, or if it was a simple thank-you hug. No, I'd tell myself. Behave. This is your superior- your boss. Be an adult about this. But part of me just wanted to pretend I didn't have to sleep alone that night, so I revelled in thoughts about his body until I fell asleep.


	8. Chapter 8

Early the next morning, I'm talking like 04:00, Geoffrey knocked on my door. He told me that he had decided to leave in search of the crown prince, claiming that it was his fault that Elias had left. I wanted to argue with him and say that in reality, Elias was a lily-livered bastard, and Max would've had an easier time trying to make lead into gold than Elias into a king. But Geoffrey had already internalized this problem as his own. His eyes flashed with determination, lively and wide like those of a horse who'd seen the finish line and had made the conviction in her heart to cross it first.

He made me an offer. Come with me to search for Elias, he said. There is no one I would rather come along.

I hesitated. I wasn't sure why he was asking me. If he was asking me professionally, then of course I was honored to serve as his subordinate. But if he was asking me for any other reason, I wanted to clarify that right away. I wasn't interested in being his side girl while he lusted after Sally, or in being a fuck buddy, or something trivial like that. I know what soldiers do on leave! If I was honest with myself, I wanted a guarantee that he felt the same way I did, and I wanted to be the only person in that intimate sphere of his life.

All of this internal conflict boiled inside of me, but all that came out was a nod of agreement, a trickle of steam from the kettle. He was overjoyed, and told me to pack the essentials of a long journey. Only the essentials, he insisted. I asked him how long. He said indefinitely. It was an impossible request.

We each packed the standard army pack in our own rooms and bided time until the mess hall opened. We grabbed breakfast and approached the king as soon as we knew he would receive us. For whatever reason, I remember very little of this important encounter. I remember there being a rushing in my ears. I remember my heart pounding in my head. But I don't remember Geoffrey's words or the king's reaction. They both sound like the adults from the Peanuts in my mind: mwah mwah mwah. Then my memory becomes clear again. Geoffrey beams at me and asks if I'm ready to leave. I tell him that I am, and we leave for the bay with 4-seater planes.

In this aspect of the trip especially, Geoffrey had planned brilliantly. The plane was a tiny little beast, not the fastest in its class but fast enough for our purposes. It was a newer green model and had many ways of refueling itself, including solar panels on the top of its wings and tiny turbines that could be extended while the plane was not in motion. There was a little undercarriage compartment accessible from the back of the cabin for our packs. And to save space, the passenger seats could both be folded down to the thickness of a college-level natural science textbook.

The only thing I asked was that he let me call my mom before we left, as I wasn't sure when I was going to see her or talk to her again. He respected my wish without question. My mom and I talked for almost half an hour- a record for us. She wished me well.

Boarding that plane for the first time, I felt so much that I couldn't feel anything at all. It all swept over me. It was like that feeling you get when you receive big news and the good or bad effect hasn't settled in yet. What was I doing, boarding a plane to who knows where with a strange man I'd known for a matter of months? My stomach turned. He had changed my life for the better in so many ways. But abusive relationships don't start out abusive. Every man I've ever loved had initially treated me very much as Geoffrey did: with kindness, respect, and support. What if I had bought myself a one-way ticket with my next Drago?

With all these thoughts lurking about, I said very little for the first few days. Geoffrey gave me a crash course in copiloting. I did my best to learn quickly. He presented me with the trajectories he felt the crown prince would take, and proposed a course of action based on the probabilities of Elias taking each individual path. To say the least, it was complicated. I found myself zoning out a lot during his explanations. He would begin by explaning his reasoning to me and his method, and I would start studying his jawline and how his chin swung out and up a bit, with a tiny dimple-cleft in it. He would clear his throat, I would act perfectly innocent, and so on.

In plain English, the plan was to follow the most rapid and long-distance transportation Elias could have taken. At the time, this obviously meant trains. During the Great War, the destruction of transportation was almost the death of the kingdom of Acorn. So King Frederick and Max (as a much younger man) had answered this by building simple, subterranean mine-cart trains to transport supplies across long distances. They weren't exactly civilian transportation. They were dirty, noisy, dark, and didn't account for human needs in any way. They were federal property and solely for government use- meaning that Elias would have been one of the few who even knew they existed.

With a map of the mine-paths granted from one of the engineer's in Max's counsel, we flew along one called the Northeast Corridor at around 800mph (almost 1300kph). Within an hour or two we had reached the mountains, and our lowest safe altitude began to sharply increase, from about one thousand feet at sea-level to about six thousand. We stayed low to scan for towns and cities, knowing that someone of Elias's upbringing would probably try to work smart and not hard. Around noon we found a small mountain village that coincided with the mine-cart train. Geoffrey landed the plane artfully on a nearby plateau, where we strapped on our packs and starting hiking towards the first of many villages we would visit on this search, that of Alleghenia.


	9. Chapter 9

We learned a lot in Alleghenia. First and foremost, how good we'd had it in Knothole. The buildings were dilapidated, and many of the repairs were clearly home-grown; tin roofs, branch fences, windows with no glass in them. The roads had no cobblestone and were full of potholes. It was a town of maybe a few hundred people max, and we didn't see a soul as we marched in, dressed in clean fatigues with fifty-pound packs of food and supplies on our backs. "Alright, well, good thing we didn't need to stock up on anything," I muttered.

Wherever we went, shutters slammed. Here or there we'd see people in the distance, around the next corner or at the end of the next alley, but people fled as soon as we got anywhere near them. We didn't have half an ounce of luck until we ran into this little girl sitting by the well. I thought it kind of odd that no one whisked her away from us. She seemed in about the same state as everyone else we'd seen, pretty rundown, but managing somehow. She was wary of me, but interestingly, less so of Geoffrey.

Geoffrey's many faces continued to amaze me. He got down on the little girl's level and took a bill out of his wallet. "I need to ask a favor of you if you're willing to do it."

"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."

"We're not strangers," Geoffrey patiently replied, "we're friends in disguise. We're looking for a stranger- a strange man. You wouldn't know him. He'd be new here. Have you seen a strange man recently?"

"Only you," she said honestly, intending nothing.

Geoffrey laughed to himself, but he was wary of losing her attention. He extend the money towards her. "Please, if you can, bring this to your mummy and daddy. Ask them if they've seen a strange man. Tell them your friend in green wants to know."

Before we knew what had happend, the little girl snatched the money from Geoffrey's fingers and taken off running. "Resorting to bribery already?" I put a hand on my hip. The hike from the plateau to the village had taken the better part of the day, and as the town was bathed in sunset, I could see mischief in Geoffrey's eyes.

"Understand something, Hershey. The rules are different this far away from command. You don't want to stray from your own ethical compass, obviously. But you can toe the line of the law without consequences."

"You're talking about some bad cop shit."

"No, I'm really not. I'm talking smart cop." He took his pack off and rest it against the well, sitting on the side of it. "We don't know how long we're going to be doing this, and it's just you and I. We don't have the time, energy, or resources to carefully and lawfully comb through the countryside. We're going to have to resort to things that we simply couldn't do under Max's watch."

I chewed my lip. "Let's just try to keep our hands clean for as long as possible. This whole experience has been pretty good for me so far, and I want it to stay that way."

Geoffrey smiled, and looked about to say something, when a man came walking back with the little girl. "Are you- are you the friend in green?"

"Yes. Have you seen any strangers in this village recently?"

The man looked exhausted. He was a cocker spaniel, his muzzle grizzled and grey. "Well, yes, but that was days ago."

"What did he look like?" Geoffrey asked, assuming a stance as non-threatening as possible. He hunched where he sat, making himself smaller, keep both empty hands visible.

"Average height, chestnut brown. Look like some kinda rodent, but it's hard to say what kind, I'm afraid."

"Almost like he was a mix?"

"Yeah. I thought he was a squirrel, but he looked a little different."

"Where was he when you saw him?"

"Trying to pull himself out of the mineshaft. We were about to run him over by setting off a full train of coal. My boss only just saw him in time to tell them to wait."

My eyes bulged a little. There was method to Geoffrey's madness, and goddamn was that method effective. We could both see that the man was antsy. So Geoffrey said smoothly, "Let me ask you one last thing about him, sir, and I'll get out of your hair. Do you know which way he went?"

The man wrung his hands and grimaced. "He asked us to set him up on another train, but for peace of mind, we couldn't do it. That route is way too dangerous for somebody who knows anything about them, let alone some pretty city boy with soft hands."

Geoffrey snickered. "I understand, sir."

"Honestly, your best bet is probably to go west of here. There's a valley about five miles away. We told him to hike down that way, where he'd have more and better options."

"And what town is that, sir?"

"Eatonridge."

Geoffrey thanked the man, promising we'd be out of his hair from now on. He insisted on paying the man for the information. I think we embarrassed him, poor soul. He eventually did accept the money, saying that he couldn't refuse if he wanted to, and insisting in turn that we take shelter in town. As long as we didn't cause any trouble the church would offer us sanctuary in its loft.

It was the first night that we slept in the same room. We set out our mats and blankets, each turning our own way to change, within just a foot or two of each other. I felt for my knife in it's holster on my leg, a kind of ritual I needed to feel safe enough to sleep. Geoffrey called my name softly from my side. When I looked at him to reply, he offered his hand. I took it, and we fell asleep linked together in that way.


	10. Chapter 10

We hunted Elias for a few weeks in this style, going into small towns, asking around, and usually getting an account from locals. Every few days we'd close the gap by a few hours, until one night a general store clerk told us that Elias had been seen that very morning. This is it, we thought. We're so damn good at this that we haven't even been at it for a month and we're gonna bring his sorry ass home.

As luck would have it, a stinging downpour fell that evening, as we were heading into the pass that would have brought us within an hour or so of Elias. The skies had been clear one moment. And then wham- mud-season showers. We were already in big sky country. No trees or much of anything to take cover under, really. We couldn't worry about our own comfort at a time like this. We had to press on.

It was like the evil eye was waching us; just as the pass came into sight through a curtain of cold rain and the little bits of hail mixed in, we saw the sides of the formation start to give way. The sheer, vertical face of the plateau expelled a small flood from its muddy sinuses. Topsoil came flowing forth over the edge and plummeting into the pass. Great rocks and stones rolled like snowballs in the viscous blockage. And, pricelessly, I watched my superior stomp his foot and yell "fuck!" for all it was worth.

We had to scream at each other from a few feet away; the drumming of the rain was overwhelming. We had to find some high ground or natural formation that wasn't going to flood. After we were thoroughly soaked and probably carrying our own weight in rain, I located a cave a few feet above ground in one of the nearer plateaus. We scrambled inside it's gaping dark maw, where the storm followed us in echoes. "Alright, love, would you rather start a fire or block off the entrance?" he asked me. His white bangs were so wet, they completely obscured my view of his eyes. I tried not to laugh.

"I'll do the latter." He was better with flint anyway.

One of my favorite things in our entire pack was this folding screen. I unfolded it across the mouth of the cave, securing it with spikes into each side wall. It did a nice job of cutting down on the cold wind and the rain that drifted inside with it. A little draft came in via the top two or three feet of clearance, but that was ok, perhaps even ideal. We'd need a smoke outlet, after all. Geoffrey made quick work of a fire by cheating heavily- he used a lighter and one of those chemical packs of kindling- but it was probably going to be the only way we'd start one given all our fuel was wet.

"Hey, would you mind if I stripped down? These clothes are freezing, and I wanna dry off before getting into fresh clothes."

"Do you _have_ any fresh clothes?" I asked him, meaning well. He opened his pack and groaned.

"No, thanks to this-" he gestured towards the sky, "-bullshit."

"Go ahead and get your wet clothes off. I'm about to do the same." I didn't think much of it at this point. We had to share a lot of things, including where we ate, slept, and bathed. I was getting to feel really comfortable around him. Even safe. And I hadn't been in this position around men for as long as I can remember.

He seemed a little embarrassed. It was kind of funny to me, how he loved to show his body off, but no one ever really got to see it. Stranger still, he wore more clothes more regularly than any mobian I know. He treated clothes in many ways that overlanders do- as agents of modesty.

When he pulled off his shirt, I felt this thrill, like a kid watching an R-rated movie for the first time. I had seen him topless before, but this was different. He was undressing right in front of me. He was announcing this to me. He was saying, look at me, Hershey. Look at me, woman, and the beauty that is the male form. Then the wet shirt got stuck on his head for a moment, giving me more time to study the white fur on his belly, culminating in a pillowy tuft on his chest. I never saw him freeing his head, so I'm sure he caught me staring at his abs.

I should have been ashamed, and I part of me knew it. But I wasn't. I looked him in the eye.

He leaned forward onto all fours and crawled the few paces towards where I sat. His eyes kept scanning me, observing me, waiting for a moment to strike. Then it finally happened. He seized me, drawing me up against him, still on his knees. He kissed me as I've never been before. I was expecting the tour de force of a large man, not the strategically poised, perfectly executed, delicate articulation of my mouth that I experienced. He stroked my hip, my back as I melted like a plastic spatula on a hot stove. I made myself supple, let him move me, like a willow in the wind.

When he broke off the kiss, his eyes were still searching. "You ok?" He asked softly.

"Of course." Suddenly I felt bold. I traced his lower lip with the smooth end of my claw. "Did you mean to ask me if this is what I want?"

"Yes," he whispered. His lip trembled slightly against the tip of my finger. His eyes followed my every move.


	11. Chapter 11

Note to the reader: this chapter contains mature content.

* * *

I held his beautiful face in my hands, pulling myself up onto my knees to lean into him. What a winning combination: the crackle of a fire, the smell of a man's aftershave, and whisker burn. I took his lower lip in between my teeth and gnawed it gently. I steadied myself with my hands on his hips. He sighed like his soul was leaving his body. And while his mouth was open to do so, I released his lip for the sake of his tongue. Over his shoulder I could see his tail bobbing from side to side, like a slow metronome. It prompted me to reach around him and toy with the base of his tail, which was bony and phallic in structure, and apparently highly innervated.

He held my pelvis against his while seeking out the faint curve of my butt. Part of me wanted to get down to business, to separate us and get a good look at the goods. But part of me was anxious. I was afraid that sex would change our rapport. I was afraid he'd treat me differentlly. I was afraid that sex would trigger memories from another time. "Are you sure about this?" he asked me breathlessly. "Something doesn't feel right."

"I want to do this," I said. I gulped, his eyes narrowed with concern. "It's just that, in the past, sex has kind of been a dangerous crossroads. You know?"

He came down a little, sitting on his feet again. He took my hand. "Yeah, I've gotten that impression before. You know that we don't have to do anything, right?"

"I really do want this, though. Just let me lead."

When I was ready, I took his belt off for him and cast it aside; the buckle was starting to hurt when we pressed together. Then I repositioned myself so that I was in his lap. I threw my shirt aside and guided his hands to my breasts, of the small but perky variety, and helped myself to continue making love to his face. His body writhed under me, his fingers blindly drawing out the under-curve or the areola. I would tease him, fighting him, fighting him, and then giving him a little, mixing it up a little on every round. If he thrusted twice looking for resistance, the third time I'd pushed against his erection so that he'd groan in satisfaction.

We eventually toppled over onto one of our mats. Propped up on his arms, he greedily took as much of my breast into his mouth as he could fit, suckling on my nipple and occasionally flicking it with his tongue. His hand slid up my leg on the outside of my pants, warming wide swaths of skin as he went. When it reached my thighs, he pushed them apart and started to massage the area in between. I couldn't help it- I cried out. He inched my pants down, over my hips, past my pelvis, until he could finally mash his nose up against the underside of my underwear and really smell me.

He made me curious. I reached for the outline of a prominent erection, but it was out of reach. He kissed my inner thigh before dragging off my went pants, working his fingers underneath my underwear and peeling them off in one smooth motion. Now fully exposed beneath him, I wanted to see what I had gotten myself into. I sprung him free. "Hey, I was in the middle of something, you know," he crooned, trying to push me gently back on the mat.

"It's only fair!"

He looked down at himself and then at me. "I thought women thought penises were ugly. Or at least, that they were weird-looking."

"I don't know if I'd paint one and frame it, but I definitely wouldn't call them ugly." I stroked it very lightly, smiling at how it paralyzed him, bringing little jolts of blood down away from his brain with every touch. "I mean, you might think I'm weird, but I actually love the way they smell."

I'm almost positive he meant to reply, but he couldn't while I was touching him. Only then did it occur to me that he wasn't circumcised. His smell wafted up to me again and I bit my lip, faced with a tough decision.

"If you had to choose between having sex and getting a blowjob, what would you choose?"

"H-hold on." He covered my hand with his and stopped me. He let a litle of his body weight rest on me, but kept most of it on his arms and knees. "I was actually going to go down on you if you weren't comfortable going all the way. So we've got a lot of options."

"Well, what do _you_ want?"

He swallowed, trying to look composed and knowing full well that he didn't. "I want to make love to you."

"Ok." I kissed him lightly on his lips, revelling in how the bottom one had swelled slightly since I bit it. "Are you clean?"

"Mm-hm."

"Good. I've got the birth control covered. Are you ok with vanilla sex the first time?"

"I'm delighted with it," he murmured in my ear. "I just want you to lay back and have a good time, ok?"

I nodded, opening my legs to make room for him. I held the lips out of the way, and he guided himself inside with one hand. His face at the moment of pentration could only be described as rapturous. There was no pain this time, at once a relief and a surprise. I lay back and paid attention to how he stretched my body and where. From the slight burn at the opening I could tell that he was thick. Fortunately, he knew that there was an end to the canal, that he couldn't keep ramming into the cervix and expecting the vagina to get longer, like someone I'd known. I held his back as it arched and relaxed, stroking his tail during slow moments to rev him up, kissing his neck and encouraging him.

"Be honest with me," he demanded quietly, "how do you come?"

Of all things, this made me blush. "I-I can only get off clitorally."

"Then get into whatever position makes that easiest for you. I want you to enjoy this as much as I am, and I feel like I'm not satisfying you."

I turned around so that my back was facing him, he penetrated me again, and suddenly our scenario was reversed. My fingers in a hard group of three, index, middle and ring, I worked them in a circle over the infamous pink pearl. As my breathing got heavier, his rhythm got a little faster, a little harder. I started to blather as release approached, the muscles of my vagina holding on to the rigid structure of the penis, begging for another hard pulse. I was going to ask if there was anything he wanted me to say, but I didn't get the chance. Orgasm interrupted me magnificently. I cried out his name and yowled, truly a cat.

He was good- he stayed deep inside me for my orgasm, giving me something to latch onto, waiting patiently for his turn. I can't imagine what it feels like to have a penis at this stage. He was so impossibly stiff, and I could hear him controlling his breathing so he could milk his time a little. I encouraged him, telling him it was ok, that he'd done a wonderful job. Something clicked. Once the resolve to last was gone, his body went into overdrive, holding me by the hips and thrusting as hard and as fast as he could until suddenly he cries out too. It's not perfect. It's raw. It's visceral. I know he probably wanted to make some kind of artificially sexy noise, but I'm so glad he didn't. Because the noise that comes out him, that strangled cry, is everything it's supposed to be.

Gasping like we just ran suicides, we collapse straight down onto the mat. My first urge is to clean myself; his first urge is to cuddle. I prevail, getting up for some toilet paper and the blanket from my pack. I offer him a few squares for himself, and I wipe myself down before the dripping drives me insane. Then I sidle up next to him, flapping the blanket over us, and throw myself into cuddling. I don't know why, but it surprises me that one, he wants to cuddle at all, and two, how badly he wants to. He strokes my head and my back, nuzzling me, hugging me. I can't decide if I like it or not. It feels kind of needy, which makes me uncomfortable.

After a few moments of indulging him, I pry myself away to get my own mat. He seems to have realized that we're probably not going to sleep together. The fire is dying, a thin cloud of smoke pooling on the ceiling before it drains over the screen. To my surprise, he's still awake when I'm getting ready for bed. He doesn't ask me anything, don't guilt me. He just turns away onto his side. I'm pretty sure he said goodnight, but as soon as laid down again, I fell asleep.


	12. Chapter 12

After the first time, Geoffrey was notably quieter. He struggled to put things into words, so much so that sometimes whole days went by without him saying anything at all. We continued searching for the prince, moving further and further southwest. We had sex several times over those weeks. And after every time, he'd try to cuddle me and sleep by my side. But the more he needed me, the more I wanted to distance myself from him. Thus, every time we had sex, he got a little quieter, a little sadder. I felt like I was killing him.

But winter was approaching and we needed supplies. There was no time to hash out the drama. Around the Mason-Dixon line, we found a good-sized town for that area, found a general store therein, and restocked from the bottoms of our packs up. A cute red dress caught my eye. It was very simple, just a crewneck with short sleeves and a hemline at the knee. The cotton blend it was woven out of felt good to the touch. I sighed to myself. When I got home from this mission, I was gonna take some time on leave, and then I could go indulge in all the cute dresses I wanted.

"You should get that," Geoffrey told me, to my surprise. It came out as more of an order. "We haven't been having much luck in noticable army clothes."

"So what the hell are we doing with our packs?"

"We can leave them on the plane. So long as it's on the edge of town, no one is going to see them."

I bought the dress and some simple flats to match. I didn't see what street clothes he decided to get, as he wanted to take the surplus back to the plane before we did anything else. We loaded most of the supplies into the cargo bay and changed in the cabin. When he emerged, I wouldn't have recognized him if I wasn't positive he was my captain. A quick comb-through and his hair was no longer a forward-leaning poof but rather an elegant three-quarter part. In black slacks, a white button-up with the sleeves rolled up, and a tie to match my dress, he was dressed well enough for almost anything we might do in town.

"People are going to assume we're related somehow. Would you rather be brother and sister, or couple?" he asked me.

"How would two different species be siblings?"

"How are Elias and Sally siblings?" he stared, unblinking.

"They are... full siblings, right?"

He sighed. "Look, I'm a soldier, not a geneticist. I don't know how those things work. But it appears you don't want to be romantically associated with me, so I wanted to give you an out."

"Can you blame me, with that attitude?"

"Don't confuse effect with cause," he spat, undoing the button that threatened to push his adam's apple into his mouth. "I've been on my best behavior as far as this trip is concerned. That doesn't mean you owe me anything, of course. I just thought you would have been honest with me about what you wanted."

If I wasn't positive that he was genuinely upset, I could have looked to his tail, all puffed and ruffled. He couldn't possibly have been aware of it from where it sat, directly in his blind spot. "Geoffrey, please, it's not that I meant to be dishonest, just that I didn't know what I wanted."

"How?" he cocked his head at me. His feet were planted in the ground, his arms tightly crossed. I recognized this as a stance of defense. But his eyes- his eyes were on the offense. "How could you possibly not know?"

"Look, let's take this back down a notch." I brought out the calm hands, palm facing outwards. "We're gonna go into that town pretending to be a couple. We're gonna get all the information we need. And then when we get a room tonight, we'll talk this out, okay?"

For a moment there, I thought he was going to cry. I don't know what I would've done if he had. But he finally broke off his gaze and uncrossed his arms. "Fine."

Once we were in town again, we both snapped into character. Geoffrey surprised me by sporting a spot-on American accent without warning; he sounded like someone who had been born and raised on the Eastern Seaboard! The first person we ran into happened to be a beautiful woman in her early forties, out walking a twenty- or thirty-pound dog. Geoffrey spun a story on the spot, about how we were looking for a friend of ours, and had gotten separated in the course of our trip. The woman didn't know, but she was able to refer us to someone who would, another woman who was a good friend of hers. She kindly walked us over to her house, a slight lilt to her speech, not a southern drawl quite yet. I instinctively grabbed Geoffrey's hand as we followed her lead.

"Hey, Hattie, you in?" The woman called, using the knocker on the front door. A middle-aged woman answered from deep within the house, a flustered I'm coming, I'm coming. Ms. Hattie appeared after a few minutes, wearing reading glasses connected around the back of her neck by a string of pearls. "Hattie, I'm so sorry to bother you, dear."

"No problem at all, dear!" An owl, Hattie occasionally hooted softly when not speaking. "I don't recognize these handsome young people."

"Don't you remember that man from the other day? The man in the impressive coat and the northern accent?"

"Hoo, my, I do."

"I believe he's a friend of theirs. They're trying to find him." The little dog sat patiently at his master's heels. I gave him big pats on the top of the head, and his leg started thumping on Ms. Hattie's porch when I stratched behind his ears.

"I see. Hoo, dears, you best come in and have a bite to eat. I'll tell you about your friend. He's alright, but there's a bit of a story to tell."

Geoffrey and I looked at each other. What the hell had Elias gotten himself into?


	13. Chapter 13

Ms. Hattie's home smelled like yellow paper and vanilla. She welcomed us in, waited for her neighbor to leave, and ushered us into her kitchen. "Can I put some tea on?"

"Yes, please," I piped up, glad for something other than water. Day-to-day life on this mission hadn't been that hard,but living on water and dehydrated rations left a lot ot be desired.

Geoffrey took a seat next to me at her little round table. It seated four people and was decorated with a crocheted doily. She turned the burner on under the kettle, which sat there readily, suggesting that either Ms. Hattie drank a lot of tea, or that she had guests frequently enough to always be expecting someone. She set out three delicately-boned teacups of blue and white china, little hydrangea blooming on the sides. The teapot of the same set was perched before us on a matching platter like a porcelain nest. The first thing I did when she set out the cream was fill my cup a third of the way; Geoffrey looked nauseated by the sight of it.

"Now where are my tea biscuits? We can't have tea without biscuits," Hattie clucked. "Hoo, excuse me, I don't mean to be rude."

"Not at all. Thank you for bringing us in."

"Here they are. Have as many as you like; they're quite good, and mostly butter." After a generous bolus of darjeeling in the tea ball and steaming water from the kettle, Hattie put the little hat back on the teapot and took a seat. "Now, this friend of yours. Bless his heart, but he's a strange one."

"Yes, ma'am. He grew up rather well-off and sheltered," I said, shrugging. Hattie nodded sagely.

"Say no more! So he got separated from y'all on your trip, and without the skills to find his way back, you had to come and get him."

"Yes, ma'am."

Hattie pushed her reading glasses back up the bridge of her beak and nabbed herself a biscuit. "Well, you've got your work cut out for you, I'm afraid. He's headed on to feral forest without you!"

"Oh, no..." we both sighed as if we knew where in hell feral forest was. When the tea was ready, Geoffrey poured for both of us before pouring it for himself. He drank the bitter black tea with nothing in it. My turn to be nauseated.

"I know. Poor thing was terribly flustered. Said he'd nearly run out of the money he brought with him."

Geoffrey held his teacup in both hands, his brow lowering over his eyes. "I hope he's alright."

"Me too, son, me too. But the people in feral forest are wonderful, and I don't think you've got much to worry about. Besides, I fed him and sent him off with some fresh clothes."

I sighed in relief. "That was good of you. He really doesn't mean any inconvenience, he's just..."

"Don't even worry about it," Hattie insisted. "I love to feed people, and nobody was wearing those clothes. Besides, he mentioned that a friend of his was waiting for him, so I imagine he's in good hands."

"A friend?" We both looked to each other. I asked Geoffrey, "Do you think he just lied, or do you know of anyone...?"

"No," Geoffrey shrugged, his expression baffled.

Hattie sipped her tea with a sweet laugh. "Hoo, no, what if I just gave away someone's secret rendez-vous!"

We left her house over an hour later, when the teapot had been cold for some time. Geoffrey reached for my hand. We walked to the inn in near silence.

The innkeeper was kind and gave us a good rate for a bedroom suite. "Sit with me for a minute?" Geoffrey asked me, as he parked it on the generic white blanket. "I'm sorry about what I said before. It was unfair of me- I had made a bunch of assumptions about the terms of whatever we are-"

"What brings this on?"

"Well... this mission is over, Hershey," he smiled sadly. "Elias has reached his end goal, presumably with his lover. He's not going to keep moving forward. We're going to catch him tomorrow and whisk him back to Knothole. And once we're there, we're not going to be able to talk about any of this."

"Why not?"

"We're of different ranks. Romance between superior and subordinate is strictly prohibited."

"But why?"

"Think about it. How easy would it be for me to abuse my power as your captain if I'm also your partner? Or conversely, how difficult would it be for you to disagree with me on a personal matter if I'm also your boss?"

"But..." I leaned my head against his shoulder, running my hand along the length of his arm. "I don't want this to be over."

"You don't?"

"No. I just don't want to feel like you need me too much, either."

Geoffrey frowned, casting his arm around my shoulder to rub my back. It brought me a lot of comfort and made me purr. "I don't understand."

"I don't want to feel like you're dependent on me. It's too much pressure."

"Is this related to-" he paused, looking for the right words. I looked up at him. "Is it because of the bruises?"

"You mean-"

"From the very beginning?"

I looked away.

"That's not the only way he hurt you."

"No."

"I'm sorry, Hershey. Would it make it better if we start over- take things slow?"

"I'd like that."

"Then that's what we'll do," he promised as he kissed my forehead.


	14. Chapter 14

We checked out of the inn before dawn and trekked across town in the same clothes to reach the plane. Fortunately, we went unnoticed. It took us mere hours to reach feral forest, but it took us another hour just to find a place to land. The area was uneven, with lots of scraggly cliffs covered with shrubs. Much like at Alleghenia, we had to leave the plane at the nearest safe landing place- in this instance, a small field- and hike several hours over to feral forest proper. Thank god we had changed back into fatigues.

By the time we arrived, it was sunset. We went about our work, speaking sparingly, and with a sad tone; neither of us wanted our romantic freedoms to be constrained again. On the bright side, the local people were some of the friendliest we'd ever met. We found someone who had seen Elias in record time, and they gladly escorted us to the house he was staying at. Geoffrey offered to pay him for the information, but he politely declined, insisting that he had everything he needed.

Geoffrey took a deep breath at the door of this little cottage. It seemed considerably better off than other places we'd visited- clearly maintained, with neatly laid bricks and a newly-shingled roof. But by no means did we think the person inside was wealthy. There were no adornments to the cottage whatsoever. No flowerboxes, no welcome mat. There was no birdbath, but we did see a cat catch and kill a cardinal nearby.

We knocked. A heavily pregnant lady answered. We thought that there must be some mistake.

"H-hello?"

"Oh. We're sorry, ma'am. We're looking for the Prince of Acorn. You might know him as Elias. We believe he's taken up residence here?" I'd never heard Geoffrey question his assumptions mid-speech.

The pregnant lady, her shoulder-length hair askew, turned in lieu of looking over her shoulder. "Um... Elias?"

And to our surprise, there was our prince, in simple worker's clothes, presumably leant from Ms. Hattie. It was strange to see him in jeans, boots, and a white t-shirt. But his get-up matched his companion's equally simple housedress. He was just around the corner, in the dining room-kitchenette. His face was pale, his mouth hung open. He knocked over his chair as he stood up. "How the hell did you find me?"

"May I?" Geoffrey asked the lady. When she nodded, we entered her home. I'm not sure why she let us in- I wouldn't have let us in! Geoffrey pointed a meaty finger at the quaking prince. "You've got a lot of nerve asking someone to do your bidding and then leaving them to take the heat!"

"I know, and I'm sorry. But what else could I do?"

"I'll tell you. You'll come back with us and make amends with your father personally."

Elias looked to the pregnant lady, who waddled across the floor to take a seat. I was amazed at how unphased she was; her pregnancy must have taken a lot out of her. "But what about Megan?"

"What _about_ Megan?" Geoffrey demanded callously. "It was nice of her to allow you to live here, especially with a child on the way. But-"

"But I love her, St. John."

Geoffrey sighed. He looked between Megan and the prince. "And you love him, Megan?"

"Yes, I do."

"Would you be willing to marry him, if the king allowed it?"

The two exchanged flustered glances. "Yes," she answered.

I touched his shoulder for his attention. He must have seen the sympathy in my eyes. His formal veneer melted away, and his tender voice, the voice I knew well by now, shined through. "Alright. Pack what you can carry and we'll leave for Knothole."

"But it's almost dark," Megan said, her voice thick and slow-moving, truly honey-toned. "You're both welcome to eat and rest here. Then we'll leave in the morning."

Geoffrey seemed unwilling to argue with a pregnant lady for any reason, although he was deeply distrustful of Elias. Megan fed us a delicious if simple dinner of candied sweet potatoes, a bit of cured ham, and cornbread. She was a delightful and intelligent person, and I somehow felt I had a lot in common with her. She was comfortable sitting and talking with us well into the night, long after Elias had retired, asking us stories about the country we'd traveled.

We insisted on cleaning up as a small show of gratitude. It didn't take long, and the poor thing really was dead on her feet. As I shook out my mat, Geoffrey pointed to the door, wiggling his eyebrows. "Notice anything?"

I shrugged. "Nothing unusual."

"It opens inwards," he declared triumphantly, setting his mat down right in front of the locked door.


	15. Chapter 15

Transporting a woman in her third trimester across uneven ground is neither easy nor fun, but we did it. A kind neighbor joined us with his mule and cart, which pulled our heavily packs as well as Elias and Megan's belongings, including a heavy wooden chest. (I took a great liking to the mule; her name was Cinnamon.) This allowed us to keep our hands free, which turned out to be invaluable. All in all, Megan was a fucking trooper. I paid the neighbor (and kissed Cinnamon goodbye) and we packed the plane. There wasn't exactly enough room for everything. Honestly, it was pretty unsafe. We kept our packs in the cabin with us, unfolding the seats and getting Megan and Elias comfortable first. Then we loaded the chest and miscellany into the little cargo compartment and prayed that the plane would be able to take off.

In hindsight, the plane was cleared for a little more than what we loaded onto it, and there was no need to stress as much as we did. In fact, we really should have been worrying about what Knothole would be like when we returned. I radioed in to request permission to land. I specified the aircraft and the pilot. Air traffic gave me the go-ahead to land in the strip right next to the bays. To our shock and horror, the strip was loaded with people, including marshalls, royal security, and the royal family. Geoffrey landed the plane beautifully. Then came the hard part.

He opened the door and jumped the two feet down, jogging over to the king. I could see him standing over-rigid, his shoulder blades threatening to meet behind his spine. His tail hung a little low. The king's eyes were wide, and met mine at one point. I was given the signal to escort Elias and Megan out of the plane. Geoffrey came running back so that he and Elias both could help Megan get down. Together, we tried to physically shield them from as much attention as possible, but it was a lost cause. The crowd was buzzing with excitement, and roared as Max and Elias greeted each other with a hug. Max and Alicia graciously shook Megan's hand, and she curtsied well with her low center of gravity. Behind us, porters were rushing in to unload all cargo.

We could see people craning their necks to see Megan. We couldn't really hear them, but we had a good guess what they were wondering. Who was she? Why her? Were they married? Was the child his? Was she our future queen?

After the briefest of ceremonies, Elias and Megan, the king and queen, Geoffrey and myself, Sally and -unavoidably- Sonic, retired to some of the innermost rooms of the castle. Max thanked us, or rather, my commanding officer, in the most perfunctory way as we stood at attention. Max then cleared his throat and turned to face the newly-returned prince. "First, Elias, we're glad you made it home safely."

"Thanks, dad," he muttered.

"But we're also very, very upset that you pulled this stunt in the first place."

"Dad, do I really need to explain myself?" Elias interrupted, surprising us all. "This is what happens when you try to force a round peg into a square hole. Sally is a born leader. You know it. St. John knows it. Sally knows it. I know it."

Max was taken aback. His fingers never left his chin. "And what do you propose of the tradition of the male heir?"

"You were going to have Sally lead before you knew I survived, weren't you?"

Sally and Sonic had taken a stance oddly central to this conversation. The two studied their feet as all eyes focused upon them. Max hesistated. "Well, yes. She was a viable heir."

"She still is. I'm not cut out for this," Elias pleaded, "so just let me be."

I waited for Geoffrey to speak up, but he never did. Max quivered with frustration. "So what am I supposed to do? Just send you back?"

"Why not? What's the alternative? Detain me to watch Sally do what I couldn't?"

"Damn it, Elias!" Max yelled. "Get out of here. I don't care where you go, just get out!"

Elias helped Megan get to her feet, and the two made their way slowly out the door. For a moment I thought that all our work had been for nothing. But then I realized that, without a plane, Megan probably wouldn't be able to get back to her home safely before giving birth. She'd either have to get back the way she came or hang tight for a while. Elias wouldn't come to Knothole without her; he probably wouldn't leave without her, either.

Alicia finally raised her voice. "Really, Max? Is this what we'd planned?"

"No, but that boy is useless."

"He's your _son_. About to be a father himself!"

"It can't be his!"

"You don't know that!" Alicia gritted her teeth. "So help me, if that turns out to be our grandchild you've turned away."

"It won't be legitimate anyway. Sally will have to lead and marry a royal consort."

Sally and Sonic stared at each other like two deer frozen in each other's high beams. I never really considered them kids before, but in this moment, I couldn't help it. They just looked so small, so helpless. None of us knew what their plans were for their futures. Who were we to decide?

Then Max spins around and gets right in my captain's face. "And you," he snarls, "What the hell were you thinking, bringing her back with him?"

"It was the only way he would come back, Sire."

Unable to rattle Geoffrey, Max stormed off into the hallway, flanked by a red mantle that whipped angrily back and forth behind him.


	16. Chapter 16

Re-adapting to life at the castle was difficult. Instead of waking at dawn and traveling the country with Geoffrey, my alarm would go off at 04:00, and we'd be separated along the lines of rank. The first full day we were back, Geoffrey's trainer bemoaned the fact that he had lost fifteen pounds of muscle and decided to punish him for it. I was sent to work with other privates and lieutenants on patronizing "team-building exercises" and pointless hikes in the woods. No one ever seemed to include our specific trainings in their calculations; I might be a private, but I was a special operatives private. Army privates are fuckboys that just made it through basic training and maybe their first tour of duty. And every single one of those fuckboys either harrassed me because of my sex or tried to hit on me.

To make matters worse, the royal family remained a screaming hydra that wouldn't die. Max had learned nothing. He still wanted Geoffrey to counsel Elias. When Geoffrey refused, on the grounds that Elias was of age and had the right to defer the throne to his sister, Max benched us and sent less qualified people on missions that would have been assigned to us. Sally was nervous, and rightfully so- none of us knew if Sonic would willingly go through the long and arduous process of becoming a royal consort. She was a born leader, but he was a free spirit, and a boy of only fifteen. (For reference, at fifteen I was shoplifting, having sex with a man four years older than me, and biding my time to drop out of high school.) Sally had to emotionally prepare herself for the possibility of an arranged marriage, and no one knew how to help her with that.

And of course- we're only Mobian after all- the lack of sex really put a damper on things. Geoffrey and I occasionally got desperate and made up stupid excuses to "patrol" an area, often just to get a few miles outside of Knothole and be alone. We'd have sex, bitch about trainers and the royals, screw around, and talk idly about how we'd define our relationship. One time he brought a bottle of gin and a lemon and the two of us got blackout drunk. It was fantastic. I'm just glad I rely on an IUD and not condoms, because I have no idea what happened that night.

Right around the time of Megan's due date, Max summoned us for duties concerning something other than his immediate family. My first thought was that our relationship had been discovered. I worried that I would cost Geoffrey his career. But to our surprise, there was evidence of a nuclear weapon stockpile on Angel Isle, and we would be tasked with locating it so that the island could be invaded and the weapons confiscated. This time we wouldn't be going out in simple fatigues and a B-list plane. We'd go suited up, to leave for Angle Isle that day; Geoffrey told me it was one of the highest profile cases he'd ever been assigned.

Currently under Robotnik's control, getting on and off the floating isle was a matter of dodging surveillance. A skilled pilot flew us just outside the high surveillance zone, where we jumped and parachuted down to land. We had been quickly debriefed. The native inhabitants of that small, bewitched chunk of what had once been part of Australia, were largely echidnas and dingoes, with small, highly-organized minority populations of hedgehogs and bees. "Watch out for the dingoes," Geoffrey grunted, as we discarded our used parachutes over the edge of the isle, hopefully never to be found. "And before you make some kind of dumb, stereotypical Australian joke, no, it's not about a baby."

I snorted.

"Seriously. We've got data suggesting that Robotnik has won over the dingoes somehow, which are almost neck-and-neck population-wise with the echidnas. In twenty years' time, they're going to be the majority. So if you see someone who looks canid on this isle, the unfortunate truth is that we have to suspect they're allied with the enemy."

That being said, we didn't want anyone to see us at all. Think Mission Impossible. We had a good idea that the nuclear weapons would be stored underground, to avoid radiation harming the populations that Robotnik depended on to exploit.

"Here, try this," Geoffrey said, reaching over to click a button on my wrist. "Do you hear a ringing in your ears?"

"Yeah!"

"That's the nano-blocker. We'll be difficult to detect via infrared or night vision, and our technology won't set off surveillance as we get closer."

"Understood."

As night fell, we located a large, warehouse-type building with a lot of uniformed personnel, some of whom were heavily armed. We located a small side entrance with only two guards, both of which Geoffrey killed with a single bolt from his crossbow. It was the quietest, cleanest kill I'd ever seen. "Are the cameras going to be blocked by this program you told me about?" I asked him, as we dragged the bodies into the same thick foliage.

"I'm not sure. It depends on the imaging they use. Cover your face." So we wore thick masks as we used the guards' IDs to enter the building. Geoffrey told me in a strained whisper, "if this building is what we think it is, it'll be designed very much like a hospital, with one route for people to visit their sick friends and family, and another route for the dead bodies and dirty linens."

The route we were on was fairly bare. We could hear internal security, but we were still very much on the outside yet. "The data we received from Knothole claims that guards circulate the facility ever twenty minutes. So I think we've got about fifteen to find the dirty linens route."

Unfortunately for us, we couldn't be too Mission Impossible, as air ducts are cliché, dirty, fucking dangerous, and my captain wouldn't fit. (Which is not to say that we tried, just that I considered it.)


	17. Chapter 17

I wish we didn't have to kill quite so many people to get where we wanted to be. If we saw a guard, we couldn't risk him coming to and informing anyone that we'd been there. We left a small heap of bodies in our wake. Some of them we hid in a broom closet, one we posed on the toilet and locked the stall from the inside. It never took us more than sixty seconds to hide a victim, but we had to be clever and careful, or the dead bodies would give us away faster than a live informant. The two guys I felt the worst for were guarding an elevator. I killed the guard waiting outside, shooting him with a bolt from behind. While I hid his body, Geoffrey pressed the button to bring the elevator down, and when the doors opened, he killed the guard we had anticipated inside. We rode down to the bottom level with the dead body, then left it in a barrel.

The first thing we noticed on the lowest level was the communication system. There were monitors, cameras, and a PA system that we needed to disengage. Sticking to the corners and avoiding the guards, we eventually noticed a control room with a large plexiglass window. Since anyone walking outside would be able to see everything going on inside, we had to lay low until the guards changed shifts, at which point the floor would be unmanned for about ten minutes. My legs cramped up from crouching.

When it was finally time, we scurried into the control room using the elevator guard's ID. Geoffrey pulled a device the size of a USB key from his suit. He plugged this into a port. A little white light at the end of it turned on. He then tapped his wrist, a small digital screen just visible from the side. "Control, control, this is St. John. Do you read me?"

A voice came from inside his wrist. "We read you, Captain. Are you in?"

"Yes."

"Have you located the weapons?"

"No, we are en route. Can you access the communications from where I've plugged you in?"

"Yes, we've gained access. We should be able to help you find the storage room via their cameras."

"Excellent, thank you."

Control made our objective possible. Special ops IT are amazing people- they're truly geniuses. They were able to disable alarms communication within the facility from the outside, making our job safer. They could see everything Robotnik's cameras could see in this particular building. They could listen to the guard's radio communications. And better yet, they could record it all. If it weren't for that, I'm not sure if we ever would have made it out.

Someone came down early while we were still in the control room. A young guard saw us, but no one was on the floor yet. He kept pulling the alarm, but no lights or nuclear meltdown noise played. His fellow guards didn't come running. He pulled a gun on us, but he was dead before could fire it, let alone before he hit the ground.

IT came through and directed us towards the armory. We wound steadily deeper and deeper into the base, sprinting in the hopes of reaching it, confirming its location, and somehow escaping before the guards saw their slain comrade and came for us. We reached heavily reinforced doors. None of the ID cards worked. The guards' running footsteps could be heard running towards us, echoing in the empty halls. Geoffrey was able to tell control to send help before one of the guards charged right into him and pinned up against the door. I heard something snap.

All in all, it took about five guards to restrain us, three for Geoffrey, two for me. Geoffrey tried to shake one of them off and another beat him savagely across the back of the head with the butt of his gun. He blacked out. My mask still on, I'm not sure if they realized I was female yet. I was nervous, and preparing myself for the unfortunate consequences many women face when they serve alongside men. But they didn't seem interested in discovering our identities. At least, not right away.

They blindfolded both of us and bound our hands behind our backs. They ordered me to walk. I heard dragging, either because they were bodily hauling my captain along, or carrying him, his tail trailing behind. Eventually we stopped briefly before I was pushed and Geoffrey was dumped. A metal door slammed.

IT must have been listening from Control. When it was quiet, I heard a soft, "Hello? Captain? Do you read me?"

I got on my feet and walked around delicately until I nudged Geoffrey with my foot. I squatted down and replied, "Control, this is Pt. Cat. The Captain is unconscious and possibly injured. We've been detailed."

"Help is on the way, Private. How badly is he injured?"

"It's difficult to say. I think at least one bone is broken from impact with a guard. He's been unconscious for several minutes now; I'm worried that he might have brain damage."

"Understood. He might need to be air-lifted from the facility once you're both rescued from the facility. Are you alright, Private?"

"Yes, I'm perfectly fine for now. Someone is coming- I have to go."


	18. Chapter 18

My blindfold was on tightly, so much so that I quickly developed a headache. I heard Geoffrey groan as he came to. "You okay, Captain?" I whispered, unsure who was nearby. I could hear him grunting and trying to move, and then he must have vomited. "You okay?!"

I could hear him spitting and clearing his throat. Once or twice he tried to speak, but all I could hear was the 'guh' of someone gagging. As the smell reached my nose, he finally said, "Yeah. Sorry about that."

"Don't worry about it. I think that guard gave you a concussion."

He sighed. "That's the least of our worries." He wriggled closer to me until we just touched. "I'm really glad you're in here with me. I was afriad they'd separate us."

I hesitantly moved my face in the direction I felt him. My nose hit something rough. "Is this your cheek?"

"Mm-hm."

I kissed it. "Me too." I felt him smile.

"Hershey, I don't know how to tell you this, but we don't have much time," he said gently. "We might be tortured, we might be executed. But either way, it doesn't look like they intend to detain us for long."

"I understand."

"Are you okay with that?"

I took a deep breath. "I guess I have to be."

"I'm sorry, Hershey. This isn't what I wanted for you."

"What did you want for me?"

He hesitated. "You're going to think it's ridiculous."

"No, I'm sure it's not."

He rubbed his cheek up against mine. "When I first met you, I wanted you to be my student. I wanted to mold you into a great soldier. And you did become a great soldier, but you would have with or without me."

"Nonsense."

"Honest. You've exceeded all of my expectations. And then, of course, I got to know you. And I fell in love with you." Then he was quiet for a long time. "I just wish I told you sooner."

"I'm so happy, Geoffrey."

"Really?"

"Absolutely." I leaned against him. "I'm sorry that it had to end this way, too. But I'm happy that you feel the same way."

He kissed my forehead much as he had done before we left for feral forest. "I was so afraid to tell you."

"You had good reason to be. It's not like I'm an easy person to get close to."

"Maybe not, but you're worth every ounce of patience."

The help we'd called for never arrived. We were in that cell for days. It wasn't the worst jail I'd ever stayed in. A kind janitor came at night, who cleaned the vomit and removed our blindfolds. She removed the bindings from our hands each night, making it possible use the toilet with a modicum of dignity. She would sneak a water bottle into our cell for us to share. Then, very early in the morning, she would come in and bind our hands again like nothing had ever happened.

If you're reading this, Maria, god bless you. I owe you my life.

Because we had to spend our days bound and blindfolded, we usually slept while the guards were on their rounds. Geoffrey became feverish and slept much more than I could. I could never seem to sleep more than twelve hours, but he was out for fourteen or sixteen hours at a time.

Then, after I lost track of the days, someone other than Maria opened the door. "Come on, get up!" they growled. We stumbled to our feet, and they grabbed us by the back of our suits, pushing us along. We got in an elevator, and we all knew there was nowhere to go but up. When we got outside for the first time in however long, I felt the crispness in the air like never before. The fresh air felt and smelled magnificent. I can only imagine how horrible we must have smelled.

They marched us for about three hundred paces before tearing off our blindfolds. I looked at Geoffrey, he looked at me, and we both figured- well, this is it. Our eyes welled up with tears. We told each other that we loved each other and prepared for the end.

We stood on a strange metal podium surrounded by dingoes in uniform. They didn't jeer. Just stood there. Staring. They looked like they couldn't wait for us to be offed, like they wanted to devour us. Across a distance was a large monitor, almost like you'd see next to the performer at a concert. It turned on, blue at first, and then displaying Robotnik's face. Geoffrey and I both jumped back. "Holy…"

"Nice of you to join us," the scientist sneered, grinning. "I think you know why you're here."

We said nothing.

"Well then, let's get down to business, shall we, spies? Today will be your last, but I'm feeling generous. Any last wishes?"

His face loomed large over us. I was kind of surprised that he didn't want any information. But now as I think about it, Geoffrey was the only person who really knew anything, and you couldn't torture that information out of him.

Geoffrey turned to me. "Thank you for being a part of my life."

"It was my pleasure." My voice broke.

"Well?" Robotnik roared. "The clock is ticking!"

"Hershey, if you could spend these last few minutes as my wife, would you?"

"Yes," I sniffled, the tears breaking lose. "Of course."

I don't know how Geoffrey had any capacity to think, as I'm sure the fever made it difficult. But somehow he found the strength to call out to the monitor, "If you'll grant us one last wish, then we want to be married."


	19. Chapter 19

It took about fifteen minutes for Robotnik's cronies to find an ordained minister. He finally joined us, wearing thick-framed hipster glasses and the black outfit of a priest. He tugged at his collar even in the chilly early winter air. "I've conducted many a strange service, but never one quite like this," he chuckled.

The dingoes never unbound our hands, or I would have loved to have held his. I wanted to hold his thick, warm hands in mine, feel them envelope mine one last time. He didn't have a ring to give me, but I know he'd give me the shirt off his back. I know that in another life, if we had another shot, he would've spent far too much on a ring for the pleasure of seeing my expression as he slid it up my finger. So the wedding continued in this way, our eyes locked, an alternate reality taking place in my mind.

We only heard the minister ask us if we would take each other as our lawfully wedded spouse. Of course we both said we would. After a long and pregnant silence, the paster left with a nod. "Congratulations, Mr. & Mrs. St. John," Robotnik jeered. "I've granted your wish. Now it's time to say goodbye."

We bowed our heads, not sure how death would come. How I wish they would've unbound our hands. I wanted to hold him. I wanted to feel his beautiful back one more time. I wanted to listen to his sweet heartbeat. I wanted to die with the smell of his aftershave filling my nose. I wanted to die with my face in the little tuft of white hair on his chest.

This horrible keening noise built up and then erupted over our heads. Then there was this massive bang. But then I opened my eyes. It was like a miracle, like I had never seen before. I had not expected to ever open my eyes again, and now the world beyond them was too beautiful to behold. Suddenly, the monitor was smashed through the center. The keening noise revved up again, and then a rush of air passed over us.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," Geoffrey muttered. It was Sonic. He was whizzing around, powering up in that little speedball he forms, then unleashing the speed on different targets. The dingoes behind us were on the ground, knocked out.

The crowd surrounding us dispersed, screaming in confusion and fear. Sonic screeched to a halt, his sneakers smoking. "Hey, Stripes! Glad I got to you guys in time."

"I've never been so happy to see you, little bastard!"

Sonic untied our hands, and to my surprise, he hugged us. "I'm really sorry I didn't get here sooner, guys."

"What are you talking about?" I asked. "Thank you for saving us. We're really in your debt."

"But it was never supposed to be this close."

Geoffrey put both of his hands on Sonic's shoulders. "Sonic, it's ok. It's not your fault. _Thank you_."

"No," Sonic gently pushed his hands aside. "You don't understand. They never sent help. Control never sent anyone to come get you guys. They said it was too dangerous, that it would only put more lives at risk."

We had accepted when we began this mission that we were going into a high risk zone. We knew that no one was required to come and get us if we needed help. But it really fucked with us, knowing that Control had lied to our faces, and possibly would have let us die with false hope.

But we couldn't focus on that now. We were alive, if only thanks to Sonic. I hugged him. I started bawling, and to this day, I'm not sure why. And that guy, that _kid_ , hugged me right back. He was just a teenager. And he had taken it upon himself to save our lives when our own government had decided that we weren't worth it.

When I had pulled myself together, we traveled on foot to the edge of the isle. "Wow," Geoffrey said with a low whistle. "Luck was on our side tonight." The isle was inches away from the nearest cliff, the only place in Angel Isle's orbit allowing a pedestrian to cross from sea level to the floating isle. In that single step, we were no longer in a high-surveillance zone, and would most likely not be pursued by Robotnik or his underlings.

We walked the mile or two to the nearest town, where Sonic was kind enough to arrange us some transportation. He told us he would meet us in Knothole and sped off.


	20. Chapter 20

The trip back to Knothole was hard on Geoffrey. When he wasn't sleeping, he was weak and not quite himself. Fortunately, the train didn't jolt us around too much, and the snack cart afforded us our first chance to eat in several days. I got him to eat a little with a lot of persuasion. He insisted that he really didn't have an appetite. I felt his forehead; he was running a high fever. So the first thing I did when we got back to Knothole was to call Quack, who graciously saw us in his home.

Apparently, that snap that I heard when the guards first smacked into Geoffrey was the sound of his collarbone breaking. A bit of it had pierced his skin, allowing gobs of microbes into his body. We'd had no way of bathing or changing clothes, so I'm sure this open wound was just rubbing up against his suit the whole time. When Quack uncovered it, it looked like a giant pimple: red, swollen, and leaking pus.

The good doctor called the military hospital and told the ER to anticipate our arrival. There, my new husband was sent through a battery of tests, eventually getting admitted and receiving the general antibiotics and fever reducer he needed via IV. I stayed with him all night, making sure he ate and trying to comfort him.

I woke up the next morning sprawled across the armchair in the corner of the room, to the sounds of the nurse admitting a few visitors. "Hello?" They called timidly from the other side of the curtain. Sally poked her head around the side, followed by Sonic.

"Hey, good to see you, Princess. Do you want me to wake him?"

"Please, don't. I heard they're going to have to set his bone later once his infection clears up; I don't want to add to everything you've both been through."

I smile, accepting the beautiful flowers she brought for him. "Aw! how thoughtful. I want to put them where he'll see them when he wakes up."

Sonic was carrying a bag only an inch or two off the ground. I assumed it was heavy, but I was never expecting the weight he passed off to me. "We don't know what you guys like, so we had a bunch of people make a bunch of different dinners. Y'know, stuff you can just pop in the oven and it's ready. 'Cause you're gonna have a lot on your hands with him being totally out-of-commission."

I hugged them both. What could I possibly say?

"By the way, I meant to ask you guys: how the heck did you manage to delay Buttnik killing you both?"

I felt myself blush. I gently set the heavy bag of gifted meals aside and took a seat. "Well, he offered us a last wish, so we asked to be married."

They both stood stock still. It seemed to sink in slowly. To be fair, they had known nothing whatsoever of our relationship until this moment. "Well, Congratulations!" They exclaimed, surprising even themselves.

Geoffrey shuddered awake. He was clearly confused at first, but his temperature had come down a degree or two during the night, and his eyes were clearer. "When did you two get here?"

"Sorry! We just got here. We stopped by to say we're glad you're alright, and Hershey told us that you guys were more-or-less married at gunpoint."

He laughed weakly. "I got out of the worst possible situation in the best possible way, I suppose you could say."

They stayed for just a few minutes, which was probably for the best. We were both exhausted; it was like all the hunger and the stress of the past several days had caught up to us all at once. A kind nurse insisted that I should go home and rest for a few hours. Geoffrey was stabilized and well looked-after. I asked him if he'd be alright with that, and he said he would be, if he could just ask me one thing before I left.

"I know that you agreed to be my wife for the last few minutes of our lives," he said softly. "And I was wondering if you're still ok with being married to me knowing that we're going to live for some time yet."

"Are you kidding? I'm delighted." I kissed his nose, which was hot and dry to the touch yet. His smile was a little dopey from all the drugs.

"I'm so happy. We'll go ahead and apply for spousal benefits as soon as I'm myself again."

"And maybe you could meet my mom?"

"Oh, I'll have to. I need to make a good impression. What should I call her?"

I couldn't help but giggle. "I'm glad you're excited."

"I've never known a mother!"

"Well, she's never known a son," I told him, holding his face in my hands. "Try and get some rest, handsome."

In a few days, he was ready to leave, albeit in a hard cast. And that's how my husband and my mother met for the very first time. I thought my mother was going to break his clavicle all over again, what with the way she hugged him. She was so happy to meet the man who'd "fixed" me, the man who'd changed my life in ways she thought no one ever would.


	21. Epilogue

It took Geoffrey's collarbone three months to heal fully. In that time, we applied to certain housing privilegs, namely one called "join spouse." It's exactly what it sounds like- the request to send us to bases within a reasonable distance of each other, given there is a slot open for our appropriate ranks. It wasn't a guarantee by any means, but we wanted to know that the government would try. Better yet, with Sally's help and perserverance, Max granted us joint housing while serving at home. Finally, we could just retire to our little studio, instead of having to sneak out like a couple of teenagers.

As soon as Geoffrey was back to one hundred percent, we left on our honeymoon. We had picked a rainy, cool area. Not because it was cheap (and it really was!) but because we wanted to relive that first night of passion together. We arrived sopping wet and deeply chilled, so we stopped at an interesting little café. There, the college kids chattered vibrantly but softly, sometimes joined by a professor or mentor. The barista was an anomaly in her job given that she had no piercings or tattoos. She served us lattés with intricate foam art; we had told her why we were there, so she drew weddings rings in the froth.

The tables were tiny and low to the ground, with little cushions for seats. There was even an impossibly small fireplace in the middle of the back wall, separated from us with a grate, before it a lovely, thick blue rug in the persian style. We curled up together at a table before the fire. To Geoffrey's embarrassment, I waited for him to get settled, and then I climbed up in his lap. "Relax," I told him, holding my latté in both hands. "We're far, far away from anyone who would care."

One arm around his neck, one hand on his chest, I nuzzled his neck and purred until he smiled. He tried tor resist, but I was too cute. He eventually broke down and started petting my back just the way I liked it. "I'm so glad you fell into my life."

"Babe, you dragged me into your life."

Obviously, I thought I was being sly, but Geoffrey looked at me with wide eyes. "Are you unhappy with how things turned out?"

"What? No! No, baby," I purred, "I'm happier now than I've ever been."

"Hey, this is kind of random-"

"Hit me," I said, lapping up the foam.

"I know you were just using it as a petname, but when you said 'baby', it reminded me. Do you think you'll ever want to have kids?"

"I don't know, maybe?"

He gave me this look, where he tilts his head and cocks one eyebrow at me. It suggests we both know I'm full of shit.

"I'd want to have a few with you," I mumble. My mouth feels like it's been dried out by cotton balls.

He wrapped his arms around me and set his drink down before reclining. "I don't ask because I want to pressure you or anything. I was just curious. Part of me always hoped that I'd live long enough to become a father, and I figured that if we both wanted to make this work, we should be honest about what we want right away."

I leaned against him, basking in his warmth. I took his hand, guiding it to my belly, and prompting him to continue petting me. "Just not right away. Maybe after my contract expires."

"So you won't be renewing it?'

"No," I told him gently, kissing his lips. "And I don't want you to, either."

"What!"

I stroked his cheek. My eyes never left his. "If we're gonna make this commitment, we're both getting out of this dangerous work while we still can. If you're glad you'll live to become a father, make sure you're alive long enough to be one."

He gave me a little squeeze. "It's not easy, but I have to admit it: I think you're right on this one."

"Hey, while we're on the subject-" I eyed him cautiously, "-what would you think about moving in with my mom?"

"Well, that depends. Lay it out for me. How many kids do you want? Do you want to keep working afterwards? What kind of material stuff do you need to be happy? What do you need from me?"

"Why does that matter?"

"Think about it, love. The cons are obvious to a lot of Americans. Less privacy, less autonomy, more unwanted advice. But your mum could be a huge help to us, too. You wouldn't have to worry about someone watching the kids, or making sure there's something to eat. And your mum will never complain that we don't visit. And we'd help make it worth her time by paying all the living expenses." He patted my belly with so much tenderness, it was easy to imagine that I was pregnant and not showing yet. I imagined its tiny heartbeat under his mitt-like hands, the wide grin breaking loose across his face when he felt it kick.

"Let's see what Mom thinks," I said, after a long pause. "She had offered to let us move in with her, but we'll all have to sit down together and talk about it, as you said."

"Right. And besides, none of this needs to be immediate. Let's enjoy these years in the service as much as we can. I want to have many more gin-and-lemon nights with you before we go ahead and start trying."

We got back to our hotel late that night, took a hot shower together, and snuggled up next to each other under a thick blanket. We made love to the pitter-patter of rain on the window. I fell asleep pondering the absurdity that I had tried to take someone's life, and in so doing, accidentally started a new one.


End file.
